The Rural Voice, 1979-11, Page 44Gardening
How to save seeds
Have you tried saving seeds from your
vegetable garden? We seem to be used to
"buying everything", that it might be an
interesting idea to see what results you get
from trying to duplicate some of your
successes next year.
When you save seed, you can gradually
improve the quality of the vegetables you
grow by choosing parent plants according
to the characteristics that are important to
you—yield, flavor, earliness, size, disease
resistance, and so on. Your judgement
should be based not on individual fruits,
but on the performance of the entire plant.
Unless exhibiting is your main reason for
wanting large fruits, it makes no sense to
save seed from a large tomato on a
low -yielding vine; far better to choose a
healthy plant with a high yield of
larger -than -average fruit, and gradually
select for increasingly larger fruit over the
course of succeeding generations.
Annual and perennial vegetables are the
easiest with which to begin your seed -
saving efforts, because they set seed when
mature after a single season of growth.
Biennials, like the cabbage family and
most root crops, do not set seed until their
second growing season. Thus they must be
kept in good shape during freezing weather
if they are to resume growth in the spring.
If you want to save seed from carrots,
parsnips, or kale you can usually leave a
few of the plants right in the garden under
mulch, even where winters are severe. The
plants will flower and set seed the
following spring. Beets, cabbage and other
less frost -resistant biennial vegetables
from which you intend to save seed must
be dug in the fall and kept cold (but not
frozen) all winter. Store them in the root
cellar in sawdust or sand, and replant them
in the spring. Naturally, not all of the
stored roots or rooted cabbage heads will
keep well all winter, but by planiing out
those that do, you are selecting for long
storage life—a desirable quality in root
vegetables.
It is not worthwhile to save seed from
hybrid vegetables, although some curious
gardeners may do so just to see what
happens. Hybrids are the offspring of
highly inbred parent stock and their seed
will produce plants that are throwbacks to
earlier, less outstanding varieties. Some
hybrid seed is even sterile.
Mark the plant from which you intend to
save seed. If you are selecting for
earliness, better let the rest of the family
know what you are doing, or that
PG. 42 THE RURAL VOICE/NOVEMBER 1979
extra -early ear of corn that you wanted for
seed could end up on a dinner plate.
Seeds encased in dry husks or pods
should remain on the plant until they are
hard and dry. Sometimes it is necessary to
tie small mesh or ventilated paper bags
over ripening seed heads of such veget-
ables as carrots, cabbage, and onions in
order to catch the seeds, for they shatter
readily once they are ripe.
Berries and fruits should be allowed to
turn thoroughly ripe and red before they
are har vested for their seeds. Squash and
cantaloupe should be fully developed and
ripe.
Pick dry seed on a dry day, if possible,
and spread it on newspapers in a
well -ventilated, but not hot, place for a
week before packaging for storage. Crush
berries through a sieve to collect the
seeds, then wash the seeds in running
water and air-dry them for a week.
Proper seed storage is vital. Since heat
and moisture impair seed viability, always
store dry seeds well sealed in cans or jars
in a cool, dry place. Seeds that may have
re -absorbed atmospheric moisture are
better off in sealed envelopes than in foil or
screw-top jars from which excess moisture
cannot escape. Be sure to label your seeds
with variety, date, and other pertinent
information that might help you in your
program of selection.
Here are some hints for saving seed of a
few popular garden vegetables.
BEANS (Annual) Although beans are
self -pollinating, a very small percentage of
a crop will occasionally be cross-pollinated
by insects, so space your special rare
heirloom varieties 100 feet apart. (This
precaution is not necessary for most
garden varieties.) Let the pods dry on the
plant till they rattle. A bean in which you
can scarcely make a tooth dent has dried
sufficiently to harvest. Hand -shell the
beans or thresh them (beat with a stick) if
you have a large crop.
BEETS (Biennial) Beets will cross with
Swiss chard and sugar beets. The pollen is
very fine and rides easily on the wind for
great distances, so wait until next year to
save your chard seed if you have beets
flowering in the garden this year. Dig the
beets before heavy frost, trim the leaves
back to a one -inch stub and keep the roots
in sand or sawdust in a damp, cold (but not
freezing) place. Replant the roots in
spring, setting them 18 inches apart in the
garden row. Each plant will produce many
seed stalks. When the seeds at the base of
the stalks turn dry, you can pull up the
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